Andy Wiley-Schwartz has over 25 years of experience working with cities and communities to envision and redevelop transportation infrastructure into public space, and helping transportation agencies develop new policies, organizational designs and strategic plans. Since 2014, Andy has been a consultant at Bloomberg Associates where he works with city governments on transportation and public space challenges. He has helped cities such as Athens, Detroit, Los Angeles, Bogotá, Oakland, Milan and Mexico City to redesign iconic thoroughfares, create new public spaces, implement major road safety programs, and develop and implement transportation strategic plans.
Previously, Andy worked as an Assistant Commissioner at the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) under Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. At NYCDOT, Andy led a seven-year effort to reposition the city’s streets as public spaces. He created and launched the NYC Plaza Program where he oversaw the development of 60 plazas, creating over 26 acres of new public space. He managed the redesign of Times Square and negotiated the country’s first public-private partnerships for on-street public space, a model now replicated around the world.
At NYCDOT, Andy also created CityBench, a public bench program that has placed over 2,000 benches on city sidewalks in all five boroughs; Weekend Walks, an open street program that created dozens of car-free event days on commercial corridors across the city; and the Street Seats program, which developed parklets by community request. All of these programs have grown over two new mayoral administrations and became foundational to the Open Streets and Open Restaurants programs that helped dozens of neighborhoods and saved thousands of businesses during the pandemic. Andy was also a co-author of the first New York City Street Design Manual, which is now on its fourth edition.
Prior to NYCDOT, Andy worked at Project for Public Spaces, where he led community-based planning and development projects around the country and wrote extensively on public spaces. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hampshire College.